Farmers Insurance and Montecito Bank & Trust team up with Ventura County post offices for nation’s largest single-day food drive

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PRLog - Apr. 3, 2014 - VENTURA, Calif. -- (VENTURA COUNTY, Calif.) – On Saturday, May 10, Ventura County letter carriers will be caravanning more than just incoming and outgoing mail, and community members won’t have to venture far from their doorsteps to give back to the local hungry in a big way.

Saturday, May 10, will mark the 22nd annual National Letter Carriers’ “Stamp Out Hunger” food drive –the largest single-day food drive—when thousands of letter carriers across the country will collect residences’ food donations for their local food banks. To date, almost 1.3 billion pounds of food has been collected nationwide since the massive food drive launched. Last year, FOOD Share, received more than 150,000 pounds of food to support the 74,500 hungry individuals as a result of the single-day food drive.

Ventura County residents are asked to leave non-perishable, protein-rich foods in a bag next to their mailboxes for postal carriers to pick up while on their daily route. The donations will then be collected from participating post offices and taken to FOOD Share’s distribution site in Oxnard.

Corporate sponsors of the local event, Farmers Insurance and Montecito Bank &Trust, will team up with the National Association of Letter Carriers to provide funds, resources and company volunteers to support FOOD Share’s missions of feeding, nourishing and educating the hungry of Ventura County.

“It’s amazing how much a single-day food drive can have a profound impact replenishing our distribution site’s shelves,” explains Bonnie Weigel, president and CEO of FOOD Share. “Today, one in six people in Ventura County struggle with hunger and this issue doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon. Every donation makes a difference and is truly appreciated. I encourage everyone to join us in making Stamp Out Hunger a success.”

One-Day Food Drive details:

When: Saturday, May 10, 2014

Where: Postal routes throughout Oxnard, Ventura and Thousand Oaks, or drop off a donation to a participating postal collection center:

More than 35 years ago, eight citizens performed a good deed by distributing food to those who were in need underneath a Ventura bridge. The early philanthropic movement quickly formed into what is now Ventura County’s regional food bank, FOOD Share, which has grown from serving a few hundred hungry people per month to 74,500 people. Today, staff and volunteers distribute more than 10 million pounds of food annually from its distribution site; more than 160 partner agencies, which include neighborhood and church food distributions and soup kitchens; as well as hunger assistance programs. FOOD Share’s programs provide healthy nutrition and education to children, families and seniors, which include: KIDS Share, SENIOR Share, Nutrition Education, Community Market, SoCal Gas CARE Program, ART Share, FARM Share and more. A 501(c)3 non-profit organization, FOOD Share is a member of the Feeding America network, the nation’s largest hunger-relief organization. For more information about FOOD Share, visit www.foodshare.com. Find us on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/FoodShareofVenturaCounty) and Twitter (https://twitter.com/FoodshareVC).